8 Weeks of Strict Crate Rest- Is recovery too slow?
My dog Maggie has been dealing with suspected cervical IVDD for almost 8 weeks — has anyone else had a dog take this long to recover conservatively?
I’m hoping to hear from anyone who has had a similar experience with their dog, especially dogs with cervical IVDD/neurologic weakness who were treated conservatively and took a long time to improve.
Maggie is a 13-year-old Chihuahua, about 6 lbs. Everything started at the end of June. She suddenly became very wobbly and was having trouble with her left side, particularly her left front leg. She was slipping, knuckling, and generally seemed unsteady. We took her the vet on 6/29, and based on her neurological exam they suspected a cervical disc problem affecting primarily the left side.
She was prescribed steroids initially (prednisolone) and gabapentin, and we started strict conservative management. She has essentially been on crate/rest restrictions since this began — no running, jumping, stairs, playing, or normal free-roaming. She is only allowed out for bathroom trips and very controlled movement, with couch/lap time only when supervised.
The frustrating part is that her recovery has been very slow and inconsistent.
She initially had periods where she could barely use the left front leg. At one point she was dragging her nails and frequently knuckling. Over time there has been some improvement, but she is still significantly weaker and more wobbly on that side.
Currently, she is mostly happy, eating and drinking normally, going to the bathroom normally, and doesn’t seem painful.
But neurologically, she still isn’t back to normal.
Her biggest remaining issue is the left front leg. She will still knuckle that paw, particularly when she crouches down to urinate or defecate, and she can be very wobbly. Interestingly, when she is walking quickly on our concrete patio, she sometimes looks almost normal. Other times she is noticeably weak or awkward with that leg. She also seems to be weakest first thing in the morning after sleeping all night.
There have been a couple of times where she seemed worse temporarily (including increased knuckling), which obviously scares me, but then she improved again.
She’s not acting painful. She’s bright, happy, eating, drinking, peeing and pooping normally, and wants to do more than we’re currently allowing her to do.
We’re now approaching 8 weeks since the original onset, and I’m struggling with how long this recovery should realistically take.
I know that an MRI would be the definitive way to look for a disc problem or rule out other things, and we’ve discussed that possibility. I’m not completely opposed to it, but because she is an older dog, is otherwise doing well, isn’t painful, and has shown at least some gradual improvement, I’m hesitant to put her through anesthesia and the expense/stress of an MRI if she may simply be a very slow conservative recovery.
At the same time, I’m starting to worry that maybe this isn’t IVDD at all, or that something else could be contributing to the persistent weakness.
So I’m really hoping to hear from people who have actually been through something similar:
Did your dog take 8+ weeks to show significant improvement from IVDD with conservative treatment?
I know every dog is different, and I’m not looking for a diagnosis from Reddit. I would just really appreciate hearing other people’s experiences with dogs who had a similarly slow recovery, because it’s incredibly difficult to know whether Maggie just needs more time or whether I should be pushing for further diagnostics.
Thank you ❤️